The present invention relates to pallets used in transporting containers, and more particularly, to a pallet having a hopper and a conveyor, such as belt conveyor or auger, for unloading material in a container which is positioned on the pallet.
Farm implements, such as planters, typically have a row of four, six, eight or twelve boxes which are filled with seed and used to plant a corresponding number of crop rows. In the past, in order to fill the planter boxes, the farmer had to carry individual 50-100 pound bags of seed, such as corn or soybean, to the planter. The farmer typically carried these bags one at a time and then cut each bag open and dump the contents into the appropriate planter box. The entire process was very labor intensive. In addition, the empty bags often were stacked in the field and later burned which produced undesired environmental consequences since the bags often contained chemicals which would enter the environment when the bags were burned.
To solve the environmental problems and the problem of stacking the bags in the field, corn or soybean seed are sold in large collapsible bulk containers capable of holding up to 2,500 pounds of seed. After the seed is delivered, the containers are collapsed and re-used. However, the bulk container approach still requires the labor intensive process of manually transferring and loading the seed from the bulk containers to the planter boxes. There are also large individual bulk canvass bags which reduce the environmental concerns and the number of bags to be stacked in the field. However, the handling of seed in canvas bags did not reduce the labor-intensive nature of the process.